


Street of Dreams

by a_lanart



Series: Torchwood 4: Lost and Found [7]
Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Community: consci_fan_mo, Crossover, Gen, Torchwood 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-29
Updated: 2010-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_lanart/pseuds/a_lanart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen Evans is back in Liverpool after her time in Cardiff, but it seems that part of Cardiff might have followed her to Liverpool...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Street of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers/Warnings**: None; just a touch of crack as is fairly normal for my Torchwood 4 verse.  
> **Disclaimer**: Anything you might recognise doesn't belong to me. However, I take full responsibility for resurrecting Joseph Williamson's house on Mason Street - only the façade remains in reality.  
> Title from the song of the same name by The Damned.
> 
> Written for consci_fan_mo on LJ
> 
> The Helen in this story is Helen Evans who first appeared in [The Perfect Drug](http://archiveofourown.org/works/211765) and if you're wondering what the hell Ianto's doing here, it's kind of implied in [A Bridge Over Troubled Water](http://archiveofourown.org/works/20027).

~*~

Street of Dreams

*

Home at last.

Helen sighed as she walked out of Lime Street station and took in the familiar sights of Liverpool before her. She took a deep breath of damp air – it smelt of fish and chips and old beer – and smiled. This was where she belonged, and fun though Cardiff had been – if a little unexpected at times – she decided she wasn't going to leave Liverpool again. It was time to find Claire and get settled back in; she picked up her bags and walked into the bustle and drizzle and noise.

After a slog up the hill out of town because she couldn't be arsed waiting for a taxi, Helen was glad to be dragged into the warmth of Claire's flat, sat down on the couch with a huge mug of coffee, plied with chocolate and given the tv remote with the admonishment that unpacking could wait. Helen found herself disinclined to argue and relaxed back into the cushions with only half an ear tuned to whatever Claire was rambling on about. She'd missed this, even if Claire did have a tendency to see conspiracies in everything. She realised she'd zoned out when Claire paused in her chatter.

"Hmmm?" Helen asked, attempting to sound interested. Claire didn't care if you were really interested or not in what she was saying as long as you *sounded* like you were; she would keep talking anyway.

"I'm telling you, there's something weird going on up the hill. Shiv keeps on closing the pub at short notice, like *minutes*, Miri's hardly been *seen* lately and there's new regulars from up that way at the coffee shop."

"What's so weird about new customers? The shop's by the bloody uni!"

"They aren't students. Honest. And what about the Oxford?"

"Shiv's always been a bit odd with regards to regular opening hours. I wouldn't worry about it."

"I'm telling you, Hel, there's something odd about all this."

"You'd find something odd about your toothpaste if you could. Now pass us that chocolate you're hogging and let me watch the telly."

Helen grinned as Claire obligingly passed over the chocolate; she was really and truly home - the bad telly, Claire seeing conspiracies in everything and the chocolate just proved it. Maybe she'd keep her eyes open over the next few days for Claire's new customers; she had the time after all as she wasn't starting on the nurse bank until the following week.

A few days later, Helen still wasn't convinced that there was anything particularly unusual going on. Shiv didn't seem to be acting any odder than usual and the new customers didn't seem to be threatening in the slightest, some of them were downright cute in fact which Claire seemed to have noticed too going from the calf eyes she was making after the red-headed Scottish woman. Helen found it all rather amusing, but as long as she got Claire's best coffee she wasn't going to be mean and say anything. So there she was, head in a book, nose in her coffee and paying attention to no-one in particular when a voice she'd last heard in Cardiff grabbed her attention. By the time she'd picked up her book from the floor and wiped up the spilt coffee she was just in time to see Ianto Jones of Torchwood Cardiff, looking as pristine as ever from the rear, walking out of the coffee shop and turning to go up the hill. Maybe Claire had a point about things being weird after all; Helen decided to turn detective.

It took longer than she'd hoped to track them down; she'd started work at the hospital, and there had been a run of very busy shifts plus Ianto hadn't seemed to stay in Liverpool very long – Helen had never seen him again after that one almost-encounter at the coffee shop – and the rest of who she'd come to identify as the new crowd stayed very closemouthed about his presence, even when Claire flirted with them; all of them, and fairly indiscriminately. Eventually she'd managed to follow one of them up the hill to an old house on Mason Street, one of the few left standing and there she'd let it lie, in the shadow of an etched brass plate proudly displaying a stylised T that fairly shouted the ownership of that front door. Claire had been right; there was something weird going on. Torchwood was in Liverpool, and that meant aliens and alien tech, and the gods knew what other strange things lurked behind that innocuous looking door. Helen wanted to find out more, and she bet that Claire would jump at the chance and grab it with both hands – a real, live conspiracy in her own back yard? Claire would be in heaven. First though, they needed a plan.

Helen was whistling as she walked back down the hill. She was convinced her life was going to change for the better; it just needed a little help along the way and she and Claire were just the people to do it. Torchwood had better watch out.


End file.
